Thursday, October 18, 2012

The Appendicitis Story

So here's an exciting tale about how Nick ended up at the hospital for the first time and had surgery!

This is Nick watching Pawn Stars at about 1 in the morning, in pain, with no drugs, waiting for CT scan results.

On Saturday the 6th, Nick went to the Priesthood session of General Conference with his dad and brothers in Salt Lake. Afterwards, he wasn't feeling very good, and I could tell because he went home instead of eating at Tucano's, one of his favorites. He told me to stay and he would go home and try to see how he felt in a while. After we got back from dinner, Nick was having pain in his lower right abdomen and he had a small fever. At about 11pm, we decided it was time to go to the emergency room. We went and got checked in to the ER and sat for a while, Nick got a CT scan, and then we waited. The results came back and sure enough, it was appendicitis! They told us that they'd get Nick checked into a room because he was having surgery sometime in the morning. It was supposed to be a busy day, but they said they would find some time to fit him in.

At about 2:30, Nick got a room in the hospital, got some morphine flowing, and started to fall asleep. I went home to get some sleep and was woken up by my phone at 6am. Nick was calling and he was going into surgery right then! We expected him to have surgery between 8am and about noon, so this was a surprise! I went back to the hospital and waited and the doctor came out after about 2 hours and told me everything went well and gave me a picture of Nick's inflamed appendix - that picture's a keeper! A while later Nick was wheeled out of the recovery room and we spent the rest of the morning in his room recovering, watching Conference, and napping. He ate solid food in the afternoon - and I guess that and a lap around the halls is all it takes to be released from the hospital! They sent us home around 3pm and we took it easy for the next few days.

The doctors and nurses kept telling us how lucky we were that we didn't wait to come in. The nurse in the ER pointed out that Nick was very nonchalant, and that most people are doubled-over and whining, but my hubby is tough and he barely flinched. They reminded us that we were lucky that he was doing so well that he could leave the same day to go home and rest. While life isn't quite back to normal, we're blessed that his appendix didn't burst and that there were no serious complications. We're so lucky that nothing awful happened as a result! Nick now has a good story and 3 scars to show for it, and the picture, of course.

Good news: Recovery is going well!
Bad news: It involves making up homework.